AMD's market research shows that it's time to get rid of the ATI brand

It's been a long four years, but AMD
has finally hits its stride after its acquisition of ATI Technologies
way back in 2006. After agreeing to purchase
ATI for $5.4B, AMD was besieged with quarterly losses stemming
from the purchase, constant pressure from NVIDIA in the graphics
market, and beatdowns from Intel (who wasn't exactly playing
by the rules of fair business) in the processor market.

With most
of its troubles now behind it, AMD is looking to kill off the
long-standing ATI brand and bring Radeon and FirePro graphics
solutions solely under the AMD umbrella according to AnandTech.

The move will also help to further
consolidate AMD's branding which has pretty much gotten out of hand
in the past few years [see figure on right]. AMD will begin the
transition later this year to phase out ATI branding and move to a
more simplified product branding lineup. By 2011, AMD's product
lineup will consist of AMD's Opteron for server processors, Vision
(which consists of a CPU/GPU hybrid) for consumer processors, and
Radeon/FirePro for graphics.

With AMD now taking the discrete
graphics market lead from NVIDIA (51.1 percent for AMD versus
44.5 percent for NVIDIA) and preparing to take the fight straight to
Intel with three
new CPU designs, the next year should be a fruitful one for
enthusiasts.

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